55 thoughts on “Unity”

  1. in video Satchmo says to Dino he’d turned 65 that year which would make it 1966.  on aug. 5th of that year (one day after Armstrong’s birthday BTW) this act of DISunity happened according to face2face:

    Civil rights icon Dr Martin Luther King Jr. had stepped out of a car in Marquette Park on this day in 1966 to lead a march against housing discrimination in an all-white district in Chicago when he was met by an ugly crowd.
    This was not entirely new to King, who had braved similar situations during his civil rights crusade in the South, including the brutal attack on a march he had organized in Selma, Ala.
    But King soon realized that this mob of white protesters in Chicago was more “hostile and hate-filled”. He and scores of demonstrators would barely begin the march to demand open housing when they were hit by rocks from the white protesters.
    One of those rocks hit King, and his aides rushed to shield him.
    “The blow knocked King to one knee and he thrust out an arm to break the fall,” the Chicago Tribune reported at the time. “He remained in this kneeling position, head bent, for a few seconds until his head cleared.”
    At least 30 others were injured by the bricks and bottles while some 40 people were arrested. King was not perturbed by the riots, and upon recovering from his injury, he said: “I have to do this — to expose myself — to bring this hate into the open.”

  2. from cnbc nov. 2020:

    WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden, in his first speech since winning the presidency, called on Americans to come together and heal.

    HIs speech on Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware,, capped off a day of celebrations and impromptu parades nationwide.

    “We’ve won with the most votes ever cast for a presidential ticket … and we’re seeing all over this nation, and in all cities in all parts of the country, indeed across the world, an outpouring of joy.”

    Biden reached out to those voters who supported President Donald Trump, telling the crowd of supporters: “They are not our enemies. They’re Americans.”

    “This is the time to heal in America,” he said.

    “I will work to be a president who seeks not to divide but unify. I won’t see red states and blue states, I will always see the United States.”

    […]

    Biden’s speech concluded with a lofty vision of the nation he is poised to lead for the next four years. “We’re always looking ahead, ahead to an America that’s freer and more just,” he said.

    “Ahead to an America that creates jobs with dignity and respect. Ahead to an America that cures disease — like cancer and Alzheimer’s. Ahead to an America that never leaves anyone behind. Ahead to an America that never gives up, never gives in.

    “This is a great nation. And we are a good people.”

  3. It’s A Wonderful World is a great song and a lovely thought as is Imagination.  Either would be great Fish Camp theme songs. Unfortunately, looking around the current political world, I’m tempted to propose:

     

  4. on this day in 1965 according to britannica:

    On March 15, just over a week after Bloody Sunday, Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson introduced voting rights legislation in an address to a joint session of Congress. In what became a famous speech, he identified the clash in Selma as a turning point in U.S. history akin to the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the American Revolution. Invoking the protest song that had become the unofficial anthem of the American civil rights movement, Johnson said:

    What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.

    Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.

    And we shall overcome.

     

    Members of Congress interrupted Johnson’s speech with applause some 40 times. In Selma King wept.

  5. Craig that is painful to watch. 
    A good demonstration of what an accomplished, giant in his field, but black person  had to do to get along in twentieth century America. Dean Martin wouldn’t make a pimple on Armstong’s ass but there he is touching, being overly familiar to an icon of 20th century  American Jazz. In a way he would not do to a white musician of similar stature.
    Kind of has an “Amos & Andy” feel to it

    Makes one say “at what price unity”
    Jack

  6. As for the “greatest song ever”…  I’ll think of it like they say about Lays potato chips…
    you can’t have (eat) just one…

  7. Craig…  I agree with you.
     
    Jack… you are looking at something recorded in 1966 with 2021 eyes.

  8. “looking at something recorded in 1966 with 2021 eyes.“
     
    That’s like saying “you’re judging the 19th century slave-trade with 21st century values”, or “you’re judging the Holocaust with 2021 values”

  9. i tried to get one of those vaccine doses “that has to be used before it spoils”, this morning, and the pharmacy told me to get lost and make an appointment

  10. Looking at the blizzard results in Colorado brings back memories of a lot of fun busting snow drifts in my Bronco.  Also, memories of skiing to the store to pick more beer to keep on shoveling.  Our big dogs would break trail so they could play out in the snow and the cats following them because the snow was too deep for them to do much other than be buried in it.

  11. chris reading/hearing 2021 comments through 2021 eyes/ears

    Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large 24 mins ago

    Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is very good at one thing: Making comments that are, at best, ill-informed and at worst, racist and/or dangerous.

    [continues]

  12. No Bink…  it’s like saying… Mark Twain sucks because he wrote Huckleberry Finn.
    Comparing the horrors of slavery and the Holocaust to a white man singing with a black man is a wee bit hyperbolic….     dontchya think…
     
    BTW… Jack’s heart is in the right place.  Craig and I saw something positive.  Jack did not.

  13. Comparing the horrors of slavery and the Holocaust to a white man singing with a black man is a wee bit hyperbolic….     dontchya think
     

    No, i don’t, obviously.
     
    Asserting that behavior of past people can’t be judged with contemporary cultural values is a popular refrain, these days, and is just an attempt by some to absolve their consciences of any culpability or responsibility for negative impacts of social policy and attitudes

  14. Like, when the slaves were pushing limestone blocks up a ramp in Egypt 4000 years, ago, do you think they thought to themselves “this is a totally justifiable social structure based on contemporary values” or “this fucking sucks”?

  15. For the 1960s, that was considered unity.  Just to be on the same stage, I guess you’d call it palling around, was inclusiveness.   It doesn’t fly now.   
     

  16. back atcha

    The host of TV’s “the Bachelor” lost his job for making this currently popular “values can’t be applied cross-generationally” argument, that became a conservative talking-point during the debate regarding the removal of Confederate memorials

  17. Did you catch Mickey Guyton’s powerful, country song on the Grammy’s?  We’ve got a long way to go.  

  18. Next year, I’d like to see women produce the Grammys.   There was some unlistenable stuff that needed visuals for the intended audience (the alcohol ads aimed at men) to stay tuned.   The often misogynistic, Dean Martin roasts didn’t hold up to time, either.

  19. Do you have any information about how or why LBJ became so progressive compared to his white peers of that era, Mr. C?

    Was it a matter of influence, or pure clarity of perspective, or what? i’ve always been genuinely curious about that.

    (i’ve heard/seen the “political calculus” reasoning for such, but the apparent sincerity of his remarks and speeches on the topic doesn’t resonate that cynically with me🤷‍♂️)

  20. Bink, good question, I too have always been curious about LBJ’s progressivism, and you’re right, it was genuine. His best biographer Robert Caro traces it back to his transformative early days as teacher in a rural school with predominantly poor minority kids.

    One of my favorite LBJ quotes about racist politicians: “If you tell a poor white man he’s better than a Negro you can pick his pocket all day long.”

    That quote came back to me just about every time I watched a Trump rally speech.

  21. Dean was an inter-generational favorite with my mom, dad, and one of my best friends in HS, but he really was big with the generations of my parents and their parents.  He had a couple of huge albums back in 64/65 – and his signature song – Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime – hit the Billboard Hot 100 just as the Beatles A Hard Day’s Night had spent a couple weeks atop the charts.  (BTW, Everybody… was supplanted from No.1 by the Animals’ House of the Rising Sun).  He never struck me as out of touch with it all – he instead had a great voice, a great shtick and fell on some really great songs, was a great friend of Sammy Davis, Jr. and had quite a few black performers on his show. His and the Beatles’ careers kinda passed head to tail – his was beginning to wane and theirs was taking off – he never had a No. 1 hit after Everybody, while the Beatles went on to chart 16 more atop the Billboard Pop chart.  (Dino had some more hits, albeit not No. 1 on the Pop Charts, but 4 No. 1 hits, one each in ’64, ’65, ’67 & ’68, on the Adult Contemporary chart).*  Context means something – remember that the 1966 clip of Martin & Louis** was a year after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and was really when black performers were beginning to be accepted by mainstream media outlets on their own terms and for their talents.  I give Dean kudos for being among those that were willing to feature black entertainers early on.

    *Edited after further research on Dean Martin’s later musical career.
    ** Not to be confused with Martin & Lewis.

  22. on another subject, but at least one that might mean whether the new voting rights bills passed by the House will have a chance of becoming law.  that subject: the filibuster.

    i like manchin’s idea of making it more painful. 

    painful as in requiring the filibustering senator:

    to actually speak the entire time

    to only be able to speak about matters relevant or germane to the opposed bill

    to not read, to not use props and to not stray/stroll more than 3 feet from said senator’s desk in the chamber

    also require a quorum to be present at all times and a positive vote of at least 40 to keep it going (rather than 60 votes against to stop it).

     

    there was an interesting oped on this subject yesterday in the urbanmilwaukee by dave cieslewicz who’s the editor ofYellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos (a blog that describes itself asA safe place for moderates in a polarized world”)

  23. Stacy v. Brian redux?  Or should it be called Democratic voter access expansion v. Republican voter suppression?
     
    Oh, and SFB is recruiting Herschel Walker to run against Warnock?  Somehow that makes sense.  I wonder which Herschel will show up for the debates? Herschel may be smarter than the average Republican, but see Dissociative identity disorder (DID) (previously known as multiple personality disorder (MPD)) a mental disorder characterized by the maintenance of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states, which was the disorder Herschel was diagnosed with following his retirement from the NFL.  There’s no cure for it, there’s no established medication routine to treat it, and treatment is a combo of psychotherapy, hypnotherapy and adjunctive therapy.  Thomas Eagleton will be rolling over in his grave.  

  24. It’s not like a boycott of those big businesses would be contained to Georgia.   If they back the GQP, they will lose market share like crazy.

  25. Voting rights is near and dear to my heart…. having been an election official that registered people to vote for so many years.  I absolutely admire Stacy Abrams….   she’s da bomb!
     
    BiD….  that’s great news!

  26. I’m sure that the Interior will be relieved to have someone in charge whose family has lived on the land for at least 35 generations.

     

  27. So, to bring it home, said Black voices in the 40s and 50s were making the same criticisms of Armstrong’s stage appearances with white performers as Jack did, today, in 2021, but they were critical of Armstrong for being a willing participant in those performances 

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